Balcony
by emergencyfan
Summary: Missing scene from 'Hide and Seek'. How DO you decide to test an alien device by throwing someone off a balcony?


Not mine. Don't own'em. Didn't create 'em. Stargate Atlantis and all related characters are the property of MGM.  
Missing scene from "Hide and Seek".  
Thanks to hubby, David, for injecting a bit more humor and my beta'er, nebbyJ

* * *

"_I'm still trying to understand how you thought it was a good idea to test this device by having someone throw you off a balcony."_ – Elizabeth Weir

**BALCONY**

Sheppard. It was more than just a name, lately it seemed to be my job. Today part of my job was to make sure McKay made it to our briefing with Weir. He tended to get caught up in things and forget a world existed outside his lab. I knew he was having his gene therapy today. I'd already been to see Beckett, who was still disgruntled about something that had happened during the process. I couldn't catch most of it. His brogue seemed to increase exponentially according to his irritation level. The few words I did catch of the conversation sounded something like ba'-heid and blatherskite. Also, I'm not one hundred percent sure but I could swear he said something about voodoo. Scots practice voodoo? I briefly pictured tiny Rodney McKay dolls made out of Haggis punctured by hypodermic needles. Eventually I came to the conclusion, given Beckett's state of irritation, that McKay had been and gone. So now I was searching several of the many labs he flitted to and from. I finally got the right one. I discovered him alone, in the process of putting a gem-like thing on his chest. Before I could interrupt him, he was suddenly enveloped in sickly neon green.

"Oh my God! It works!" He did a little dance of joy around the table, "It works! It works!"

I leaned against the lab door, watching his epileptic fit. "Taking up ballet, McKay?" I drawled.

"Major. Perfect. Come here!" He grabbed my arm and practically dragged me into the lab.

"Easy, McKay, what's going on?" I asked.

"It works!"

"What works?"

"The gene. The shield. It all works!" He was still tugging insistently at my arm.

"Slow down, you're not making any sense. The shield around Atlantis?"

"No, no, the personal shield."

"What personal shield?"

"This personal shield," he said, clapping his hands together and creating a spark of green.

Now I _was_ intrigued. "Really?"

"Look!" He demonstrated by picking up a pencil and stabbing it into his hand. It stopped in a glow of green. "See? Nothing!"

"Huh." I gave a swift kick to his left shin. When my foot made contact there was another green glow. "Did you feel that?"

"No!" He ignored my disappointment. "What did it feel like to you?"

"Like kicking wet sand."

"Try something else!" He was practically dancing in place.

Under normal circumstances, there were a number of things in the lab that I would have considered throwing at McKay, or telling him to insert into certain orifices. I finally settled on a good old-fashioned length of ordinary pipe. I briefly wondered if McKay was building a nuclear pipe bomb but decided not to ask. "Batter up?" I suggested.

He braced himself against the table. "Go for it!"

I swung lightly and the pipe stopped dead when it hit him.

"Harder," he insisted.

I paused a moment and did a Babe Ruth, pointing towards the corner of the room, before raring back and letting swing a hit that would have done my daddy proud. "Shit!" I dropped the pipe and rubbed my stinging hands on my thighs.

"What did _that_ feel like?" McKay asked excitedly.

"Like I hit a brick wall with an iron pipe," I said grumpily but I was grinning ear to ear. McKay's excitement was infectious. I picked the pipe back up and took a few good swings at various parts of McKay's anatomy - all in the name of science, of course. The blows were neatly absorbed in a flash of green light, although he still winced when the pipe came near his crotch. I know what you're thinking, a crotch shot is against some sort of man-code, but you vastly underestimate McKay's ability to annoy the piss out of me.

"So, it will stop things from hitting you. Will it stop you from hitting things?" I asked.

He pondered this for a few seconds then made a running dash at the wall and smashed into it with joyful abandon.

"Jesus, McKay!"

"Nothing! I felt nothing!" He looked around wildly for something else to experiment with. His eyes fell on my side arm.

I followed the glance and pulled out my 9mm pistol. "I don't know McKay, it's been pretty cool so far but what if the power suddenly goes out or something?"

"That's not going to happen! Come on, you've threatened to shoot me every day since we've been here, here's your chance!"

He pronounced it 'bean' instead of 'bin.' A Canadian thing I guess. I suppressed an urge to tease him about it and turned my attention back to the subject at hand. "What about a ricochet?" I asked.

"If I'm right, there shouldn't be one." He saw my hesitation. "Come on, you _know_ you want to!"

What was I, ten-years-old? But he had me pegged. I was tempted. Sorely tempted. I pulled back the slide on the pistol. McKay braced himself and closed his eyes as I aimed the gun at his chest. At the last moment, reason reasserted itself and I dropped my aim a few feet before firing. There was a loud 'bang' as the bullet discharged but nothing more exciting happened. The bullet just stopped in a burst of neon green when it came near him and dropped to the ground. Rodney bent down and picked up the bullet and tossed it to me.

"Mother F…!" I exclaimed, quickly dropping the bullet and waving my hand rapidly to cool it. "That's hot, McKay!"

"Sorry," he replied. But he was too giddy with success to have any real sympathy for burned fingers. "I could do this all day. Quick, find something else! I know! See if you can set me on fire!"

That 'all day' sparked a memory for me. "We can't. We're supposed to meet Weir for a briefing, remember? In fact, we'll be late unless we get a move on. Come on." I could see that he was resistant towards the idea. Holstering my gun, I grabbed him by the arm, ignoring the strange tingling sensation in my fingers as I made contact with the shield, and ushered him out of the lab. "Not that I wouldn't love to set you ablaze, McKay, but work now, play later," I admonished.

It didn't stop him from experimenting though. All during our walk to the control room he kept launching himself randomly at the hallway walls. We still managed to arrive on the upper level of the control room with a few minutes to spare. One of the techs shouted up a question from below about a device he had found and McKay leaned over the rail to answer.

"Careful," warned the tech, seeing his boss lean over even further to get a better look at the device.

Apparently, a lightbulb went off for both of us at the same time. McKay turned to me and saw the matching gleam in my eyes. He grabbed the top rail and planted his foot on the middle one, but I grabbed his arm and he froze.

"What?" he asked obviously disappointed that I had stopped him.

"You're not just going to climb over, are you?"

He looked over the rail and back at me. "Why not?"

"Come on, McKay, where's your sense of style?" I teased.

He stepped back from the rail, intrigued. "What do you mean?"

I grinned wickedly. "You could at least do a back flip."

"Believe it or not, Major, I haven't had the occasion to learn a back flip," he said, somewhat testily.

Imagine my surprise. "Good point." I said as I considered this little dilemma. "I know, stand with your back against the rail." When he had obeyed, I continued, "Now, I'll just give you a shove, all you have to do is tuck and roll."

"Tuck and roll," he repeated, as if memorizing the instructions.

"Yeah, ready?"

"Wait a minute." He flapped his arms briefly to loosen up. "Okay, I'm ready."

I gave him a hard shove against his chest and he sailed over the rail. I enjoyed it on _so_ many levels. I was a _tiny_ bit disappointed that he landed on his hands and knees instead of his feet, but, hey, nobody's perfect, right?

"Oh my God!" Weir's exclamation caught my attention.

"Did you see that?" I asked her ecstatically.

"Yes, what the…"

Rodney jumped up. "I'm alright."

"_I've _got_ to get me one of those_!" I thought as I raced down the steps.


End file.
